to get the creature off her. Perversely it hopped onto her arm before escaping to freedom, and Michelle shuddered all over at having suffered its touch on her skin.
“You filthy child!” she flung at Marco. “Bringing that slimy thing up here and letting it jump on me!”
She stepped towards him, her face screwed into venomous fury, her long lean body bending forward, arm outswinging.
The realisation that she was going to hit Marco had Gina leaping to her feet. But she was too far away to stop it, too shocked to even call out “No!”
It was Alex, surging from his chair, who caught Michelle’s arm, halting it in midair, his fingers closing around it with warning force and lowering it her side. Virtually in the same instant, Isabella acted, reaching out and scooping Marco back from the line of fire.
“There is no harm done, Michelle,” Alex stated, his voice hard with command, the power of the man literally shimmering from him in such strong waves, Gina instinctively held her breath, her heart thumping wildly against the constriction in her chest.
He was defending her son…saving him from the physical abuse his fiancée would still deliver, given half a chance.
“No harm!” Michelle screeched, her body snapping upright, her gaze slicing daggers at Alex for intervening. Frustrated in one act of violence, she bared her teeth at Marco who shrank back, not understanding his offence. “You’ve ruined my trousers with your filthy carelessness,” she accused, her rage unabated.
“Hardly ruined,” Alex bit out, his jaw tightening at this further outburst.
“Boys will be boys.” Isabella’s tone was deliberately temperate but she flashed a quelling look at Michelle as she put her arm around Marco in a comforting hug. “All living creatures are fascinating to them at this age.”
“Cane toads!” Michelle raved on, her revulsion still volatile. “Ugly, creepy cane toads!”
Marco was cowering back in the protective circle of Isabella’s arm, fright stamped on his face as he stared, goggle-eyed at his attacker.
Gina shook herself out of the gut-knotting tension. Her son needed her help, her reassurance. Alex and Isabella King were protecting him but she was his mother.
“I’m sorry the toad accidentally leapt on you, Michelle,” she said quietly, “but please don’t blame my son for it. Marco thinks catching toads is good. He sometimes helps one of his uncles do it and he’s used to being praised for bringing them to him.”
Blazing outrage was swung directly on her. “You let him help his uncle catch these disgusting things?”
Gina nodded, keeping her composure very calm for her son’s sake. “To Marco, it’s a great game. His uncle organises toad races for tourists. He gives them names like Fat Freddo, Forest Lump, Prince Charming…”
“Prince Charming?” Alex cocked an eyebrow at her, his tone amused, although there was no amusement in his eyes, more a wry appreciation of the distraction she was offering. Anger at the ugly scene simmered behind it.
Gina forced a smile at him, grateful for his help in easing the tension and the shock for Marco. “What’s more…” she went on, determined on giving her son more recovery time, “…if Prince Charming wins the race and it’s been bought to win by a woman, he tries to chat the woman into kissing it.”
“Kiss a toad?” Michelle gagged at the thought.
“It causes great hilarity amongst the spectators. They enjoy the mad fun of it. No one has to go through with the kissing but some do, getting their friends or family to video it so the story will be believed when they go home,” Gina patiently explained.
“I’ll bet it makes a great story,” Alex chimed in, sealing her account with pointed approval, then turning to deal more directly with his fiancée. “It’s all a matter of perspective, Michelle.”
“Ugh!” was her jeering response. “If you don’t mind…” She tore her wrist out of his hold. “…I’m going to wash the slime off my arm.”
She swung on her heel and with a haughty disdain of every effort to rescue the situation, marched off to the closest rest room. Her snubbing departure left a silence loaded with spine-crawling embarrassment. Gina glanced quickly at Marco who looked as if he was still teetering on the point of bursting into tears, despite the soothing-down process.
Alex moved to crouch in front of him. “Hey, Marco! How about we go look in the fish pond,” he suggested cheerfully.
“Fish?” her little son repeated on a slight wobble.
“Yep. Big red ones, gold ones, spotted ones. Let’s count them and see how many there are.” He plucked Marco out of his grandmother’s protective hold, swung him up in the air and perched him on his chest so they were face-to-face. “Can you count?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows as though in doubt.
“Yes.” Marco nodded gravely as he counted, “One, two, four, ten…”
“Good! Then off we go to the fish pond. If your mother permits?”
They both turned to Gina. She was momentarily transfixed by the burning need to make reparation being transmitted by Alex King’s vivid blue eyes. The intensity of feeling bored straight into her heart, forging an even stronger connection between them.
“Mama?”
The hopeful appeal from Marco forced her attention to him. The threat of tears had been effectively wiped out with the exciting flush of further achievement to be pursued.
“Yes, you may go,” she said, submitting to the need of the man and the moment, though she wasn’t at all sure this was the best action to take.
She watched Alex King carry her son away on a new adventure, grateful for his initiative in one sense, yet feeling hopelessly ambivalent about where this was leading. She wanted to believe…all sorts of wild things…yet surely the better solution would have been for her and Marco to leave, allowing these people to sort out their differences in private. Being the meat in their sandwich was not a happy place.
“Alessandro has a fine affinity with children,” Isabella assured her, intent on dispelling any worries she might have. “He looked after his younger brothers well when they were little boys.”
Realising she was still standing, Gina dropped back onto her chair to show she accepted Isabella’s assurance that Marco was safe with Alex. That wasn’t the problem.
“He’s very kind,” she replied, pasting a smile over her inner turbulence.
Michelle’s rage had been defused but the memory of it was not about to miraculously lift. She hoped Alex would bring Marco back soon enough for them to leave before his fiancée returned.
Though how he could marry a woman like that was beyond her comprehension. Especially if he wanted children. Admittedly, Marco wasn’t Michelle’s own child, but such a blaze of temper over a little toad, and the urge to hit…
It was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
And everything Alex King had stirred in her this afternoon made his connection to that woman feel more wrong.
The fat was in the fire and definitely sizzling, Isabella thought with deep satisfaction.
She had struck gold with Gina Terlizzi and her delightful little son. No doubt about her feelings for Alessandro and the attraction was definitely mutual. Best of all, Michelle had shown her true colours this afternoon. In fact, the manner in which both young women had conducted themselves provided such a striking contrast, her grandson would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to appreciate the differences.
He was most certainly feeling considerable discontent with Michelle.
And it wasn’t just kindness towards Gina.
But what had been achieved this afternoon